Assent procedure

: European Parliament, Strasbourg (Photo: European Parliament)

The European Parliament must approve an agreement, normally with absolute majority of its members.

Introduced with the Single European Act in 1987, the assent procedure is used by the European Parliament to approve international treaties and some other decisions outside co-decision and consultation.

In the Lisbon Treaty the word assent is changed to "concent" and cover many areas, see under the word Consent in the Readable version of the Lisbon Treaty.

Important international treaties, treaty amendments and the use of the flexiblity clause all require an absolute majority of all members, which is 378 of 754 possible votes in the Lisbon Treaty until 2014 when it falls to 376 of 751. Until the European elections in 2009 it was 393 of 785 votes.

Agreements with third countries, association agreements and approval of new member states requirean absolute majority of all MEPs.

MEPs can therefore vote against, for example, agreements on enlargement with new member states in two different ways: by voting “No” or by abstaining.